Katagawa

Rolling

Rolling

HOkori was walking about the first floor and decided it would be best if she started to make her way up the floors once more. There was a significant lacking of content left for her to do here. And ever since the person she had been doing the Dragon quests with seemed to ahve disappeared on her randomly, she needed to make her way back through doing those eventually. For now though she would focus on lower level content. Until she found another person who could act as a mentor and a way for her to get help on high level content, she was stuck with her own wits about doing this stuff. Once on the second floor, she quickly spotted a quest about a venomous dog creature that was terrorizing some merchant. Deciding it would be a good idea to start making her way out there, she decided to make sure she was ready before truly getting it all happening.

Hokori watched as Symphony quickly dispatched the boar pup that had bounced off of her blade. It was a quick death thankfully, so at least she wasn't one to toy with her prey. But the joy she was having was perhaps worrying. There was little that she could do to help litigate her fears of this woman becoming quite the killer later on down the road. Perhaps it would improve at a later time, but for now, she still had that concern. Wiping the concerned look off of her face, she quickly got a reply back towards her. "Oh no, not a problem. Always willing to help make sure that people get some help. On top of that, I seem to get a little bit of experience points still when I'm near these deaths, even if they are incredibly weak. Not as much as it used to be, but still something I guess." Hokori hung back a bit and let Symphony lead as she looked around for more boar pups to hunt down. It was goign to be another long run at this quest it seemed. But what else was new, this quest was punishing to anyone who couldn't take on multiple at a time it seemed.

@Symphony

Hokori gestured for Symphony to lead the way as they went to find themselves another boar pup. Watching the battle from a fairly close distance, she was ready to leap into action in case another mother boar showed up to the fight. Instead shoe noticed that the small boar was coming towards her. She gave a soft chuckle and pulled out her large blade. Holding the flat towards the boar, she watched as it bounced harmlessly off of her blade and reeled back towards Symphony. "It's all yours here." This should be interesting to watch. One strike should be enough to finish it off, and the boar was still a little bit stunned from running into a tree and then the flat of a blade. But perhaps Symphony wasn't quite ready to get moving along towards the next quest. This was a good determinant though of being able to accomplish ones goals in combat though. And hopefully that would carry properly over to the next quest where a bit tougher of a challenge awaited her.

@Symphony

Hokori listened to Symphony talk about how builds like the ones she planned on could mesh well. It was certainly the kind of build that could be taken down easily, but would be strong when it wasn't targeted for specifically. Enough accuracy would pretty much destroy the investment that she had into evasion. However the amount of commitment it would like take should balance it out in the end. She would have enough of a backup plan that she could make sure that there was little use for that accuracy once she switched over too it.

As she was in thought, Hokori watched the woman quickly take out one of the other boars that had shown up. "You're fine. You're getting better at taking them down as well which is good. There's another material there by the way, one or two more should finish up this part of the lessons for you. I can't help you out that much sadly or the quest won't count, but I can make sure that you only have to focus on the monsters the quest spawns and not anything else that might spawn on the side.

@Symphony

Hokori listened to the player, intent to try and find out some information about her. She seemed a bit more attentive to the world around her, more so than all the other people who had left her to her own devices while trying to help them on this quest. All that attentiveness certainly didn't seem to give them that much stability though. At the mention of a stealth build, she realized that that could play quite into the favor of the build she was trying to make. With her making it already hard to hit, she could ensure her teammates victory even further by making sure that they still were focusing on her even in their frustration.

"I'm actually working on switching it out," she said in response to Symphony's question, "don't really like the style, but it's what I started with. Trying to become an evasion based tank. Doesn't seem to be too popular though so I'm kinda stuck figuring it all out on my own. Landed a nice unique piece of gear though from someone doing a giveaway. I was the last one there too." She pointed to her greyish armor at the same time. Though she didn't really like the appearance, it was the best piece of gear she had. She would probably want to try to shift it to something a bit more her style if she ever got the chance. Probably some sort of quest or micro-transaction that would get her the ability to change an item's appearance.

@Symphony

Hokori watched as the girl quickly dispatched the boar with little wait. At the very least she was merciful with the kills that she made. As she asked about giving her other sandwich, she did realize that she was quite hungry. It may have been an artificial hunger, but it was still quite there. Taking the sandwich once it was offered, she sat down next to the woman and tried to start a little bit of a conversation. "You never did give me your name. Or are you trying to be the type of person who silently works from the shadows with no one knowing their deep and brooding past. Can't tell what with the black armor." Thankfully it seemed like the people looking for that edgelord, as she had heard her classmates call it, vibe weren't too common in this game. Or maybe she just didn't know it because they were all the ones causing player deaths. The reason why a death on the front lines was worth it. It meant clearing faster which meant that players were less likely to die making it through this game in their own little groups.

@Symphony

Hokori followed much more slowly through the bushes, knowing that she wouldn't want to be interrupting this little hunt. That and she had a feeling that if the woman got a little too crazy she could end up in the line of sight of them herself. There would be little she could do except defend against their attacks if that were to happen. Of course, they would have to actually try to hit her if they wanted a chance. The little trinket giving her enhanced reflexes had already proved its potency, and that was while she was even weighted down by her two handed sword. She really needed to find a way to be rid of that, but that was going to take some time before she figured out what to do otherwise. There was quite a few options and she didn't want to go down the wrong path twice in a row. That would just mean more wasted col for useless experiments. She needed to know what she wanted before she got it at all.

@Symphony

Hokori watched as the girl was making their way towards finding some more boar pups. Waving her along, she hung back a bit in anticipation of any further antagonization coming from some possibly larger threats. It wouldn't be that surprising, but she had a feeling the ones in the general vicinity were already dead. That wasn't to say she would need to give a bit of help with taking on the boar pups. She could very realistically have to make sure that she was available to help out the woman quite quickly. She also needed to get her name. Probably a sneaky friend request sent before they left would do the trick. She seemed like the type that would accept it, though Hokori hated playing on emotional ticks like that. She always felt so slimy for it. Though if she really looked into it, she could tell that this woman was not going to be one to be trifled with when she got a bit more powerful. There was that same merciless drive behind her eyes that the boar she had just killed had. Perhaps she would be able to be free of it eventually, but there was no telling where her story would lead to from this early moment.

@Symphony

The woman had managed to take one of the boars out, and Hokori gave a little smile at that. But for now, she needed to focus her attention on the boar in front of her. She had been playing games long enough. As it was wheeling around for another charge, she prepared her sword art. The boar charged headlong at her, a merciless killer stare in its eyes. All she had for it was the grin on her face. As the boar was closing in, she lunged her giant blade forward and straight into the face of the boar. As it shattered in pixels flying past her, she was amazed at the stupidity of the boars. They were built with some of the best reactions she had seen, but were still some of the dumbest creatures that there were to her knowledge. Well, all the easier to take them out with her blade.

@Symphony

Hkori continued to keep the beast away from getting to its brood. There was no reason for it to engage in the fight. She looked behind herself real quick to make sure that the fight was going ok as she hadn't gotten anything back from the woman herself. It seemed she had this one nearly dealt with though so Hokori refocused her attention on the boar, which had suddenly started charging at her. With the extra reflexes granted by her necklace, she quickly leaped over the top of the beast and vaulted off the top of its back. She waas unable to get a retaliatory strike as she didn't have the time to prepare that much, but she was able to get a sharp whistle out to bring its attention back over to her. At the very least she could try to keep the larger enemy over by her.

@Symphony

Hokori watched as the woman started to make her way towards the first boar. As they fell to the ground once more, Hokori took out her own blade as the mother of the boar pup emerged from the bush. "I've got the mother, you can go for the pup safely. Don't worry about me though, I'll be just fine." She wanted to set an example for the woman, though she was having difficulty finding an opening against the boar. At the very least, it seemed like it was timid enough that it didn't want to attack her either. Perhaps she was just trying to be defensive and the trip up from the woman she had just met wasn't threatening enough to warrant any sort of aggression. Making sure to keep herself between the mother and the other two, she turned towards her backside to address the woman, "Make sure you focus on how you attack before you follow through with the strike. Otherwise you'll never find your center in the heat of battle."

@Symphony

As Hokori was behind the person that was walking towards the fields, she noticed her leaning back. There was little else for her to do except walk a little bit closer. And though she was about to respond, she watched as the woman accidentally tripped over herself and fell to the ground. She reached down to pick her up off her feet as she told them a little bit about herself. "I'm not actually here for the quest, I did it myself quite a while ago. But I do like to help out some lower level players now and then, especially whille I'm not so high level myself. The names Katagawa by the way, seems people have started to call me Kat." Having pulled the girl up, she rested her hands on the large two-handed swordd sstrapped horizontally at the bacck of her waist. Her leather armor was a greyish tone that seemed to have some strange sort of life pulsating from it. A feather necklace hung from her neck as well as she pointed towards the fields. "Let's go ahead and keep walking there, no sense letting you be delayed while talking to me."

@Symphony

Hokori was making her way back. From her latest expedition to help a beginner with doing the second lesson. Sadly they weren't geared up for it well enough and she wasn't able to make sure that they could finish it up. It didn't help they were also quite unlucky with the tusks that they weren't getting. Of course, she had heard rumors of worse luck and hadn't had very good luck of her own, so at the end it was really a moot point. As she passed through the gates, she saw another person who seemed to be heading towards the fields with a dagger at the ready, turning around to possibly help some more new players she made her way behind them. SHe didn't try to hide, though she was just looking out in case they accidentally attracted the attention of a larger boar. There was nothing that she could benefit from killing on this floor now, but she could still try to protect people as they made their way through what was more than likely their first combat experience.

@Symphony

Hokori watched as the boy was struggling to land the last blow against the boar pup he was facing. As he turned towards her with a bit of defeat in his eyes, she just shrugged her blade into a firm two-handed grip. There was little reason that she needed to not fight it. She could tell that he was ready to just turn in and call it for now. Bring her blade up, she reversed the grip that she had on it and turned it downwards into the ground. The pup didn't see her behind it and was caught off guard as it was stapled into the ground with her blade. It shattered not long afterwards with no rewards popping up. It was too weak of a creature to have given her anything. These floors really were starting to become much too easy for her to pull off. Hopefully she could actually find herself on higher floors sooner or later. But while there was still people to help out, she didn't want to do that. "Well, I can tell that you're likely done with trying this quest for the time being. Send me a message if you want to be trying again with me some other time. Would be happy to have your back, though I suggest that you get yourself some better gear before attempting this again. Even the slightest damage increase will help a lot when you are trying to get this quest done. Take these boars out in seconds and the low drop rates won't bother you nearly as much."

The floor that they were on was honestly quite the nice place. It wasn't one of those terrifying floors she had heard about, but she knew that was no reason to be complacent. She thought about what Baldur said, and thought carefullly. There wasn't that much that she knew of the front lines, but she knew she would be able to navigate her way around optimizing her consumables fairly well. "I don't think I'm goign to be too particular about taking in consumables. I'm thinking of tanking and not focusing that much on damage so probably just some stuff to add to my mitigation and evasion. What I would really like to know is what I may be walking in to. I know these aren't an army of soldiers fighting to the front, so there's got to be some drama that goes on. I just want to be prepared to know what there is to pay attention for or people who may not be what they show themselves to be." As much as she hated to play politics, she knew it was going to be a necessary evill for her to do.

@Baldur

"I was 24 when I first entered this game. That would probably make me about 26 now. It can really be quite hard to keep track of the time in a world where all the time is relative to whatever the creators wish it to be. For all we know they sped up the simulation and we've only been stuck for a week or two here." She realized how ridiculous she sounded saying that out loud, but didn't retract her statement. As far fetched as it was, it was a possibility.

"I hear you about that accumulated debt. I probably have student loans, those ticking little time bombs, ready to pounce on me the moment I get out of here. It is sad how complex society has gotten. But the simplicity we get to enjoy here is only through a common goal and a small population." Hokori nodded as Baldur also confirmed his own age. She didn't particularly care about other's age, but it was a nice way to be able to gauge the maturity of them.

@Baldur

Hokori noticed that the beast was starting to finally stir. After all of this, it was finally going to get a chance to start moving. She backed off from it, and could feel the tendrils of energy seeping into her body from her leather armor. Faint red streaks could be seen going towards her, giving her that life energy. Still not the best of timing considering she had taken no damage yet, but she hoped to keep it that way. After seeing how much damage Dustin was able to do, that meant all she had to do was kite it a bit and let him get the last hit in on it. Guess you're not that useless after all. It was a stark difference from the suicidal optimist she had met months ago. Though it seemed the suicidal part hadn't really left, he just replaced it with a mask of nobility to hide his death wish. Still, it meant this fight would be over quickly for them. And it meant she could sit here and not have to worry about dodging around for too much longer, unless he got distracted again somehow.

[H: 1] Dustin: 400/400 HP | 28/40 EN | 10 DMG | 14 MIT | 1 ACC | 2 EVA | 4 BH
[H: 2] @tricolor_mina: 280/280 HP | 21/28 EN | 3 DMG | 23 MIT | 1 EVA | 1 KEEN | BLD 12 | BH 2
[H: 3] Katagawa: 280/280 HP | 14/28 EN | 7 DMG | 8 MIT | 3 EVA | 9-10 PLZ | 2 BH | 5 VMP(D)

Snow Beast: 54/250 HP | 160 DMG [Stunned: 0/1][BLD: 1/2]

Hokori let the boy keep fighting. He may be getting a little bit repetitive, but his first field boss would probably drive that out of him real quick. The wasp queen on floor 2 seemed to learn with each death that was caused to her and made it really hard to repeat the same strategy against her over and over. Or at least, that was what she had found out about it. She had only personally fought it the once. Looking around the fields to check for safety once more, she noticed that there was something protruding out of the ground. Checking one last time to make sure that pure was safe, she walked over to it and noticed that it was a nice looking treasure chest. Who knew what it could have. Probably nothing much considering this was just the first floor, but at least she could try to get something out of it. At least that was what she hoped.

@pureblade

Hokori watched as the battle slowly degraded into charging at each other again. She wanted to tell the boy off, but figured she may as well let him learn from it now while it wouldn't kill him. Not that this boar couldn't kill him, it would just take a very long time before that happened. Meanwhile, she did her best to look around and make sure they weren't goign to get interrupted by other boars or even PKers looking for some easy marks. It was strange that they still wanted to prey on the loewr level players when the high level players were the ones worth so much more. Loewr level players weren't even of infinite supply, which was why they were usually a good target for PKers to go after. But here, death was permanent. That meant that anyone who voluntarily killed someone was just a killer in her eyes. Not to say an orange crystal meant you did it voluntarily, but if it was she had no symmpathy for any consequencces those actions caused.

@pureblade

HOkori watched as the other two continued to fail to connect their strikes. It meant that this fight was going to go much sloweer than she had anticipateed. On top of that, it seemed that Dustin was wanting to die moreso than actually fight this creature. At the very least it was driving him. Recklessly and she would be writing him off sooner than later, but driving him nonetheless. Jumping onto the side of the cave with the grace of a lioness, she quickly leapt down at the beast and drew two pairs of slashes across it, locking it into palce once more. It would have little cchance to move around this time as the stunned condidtion appeared by its health bar. She landed back in front of it to make sure it stayed focused on her. But she was ready to split to the side the moment that it was going to be free.

[H: 0] Dustin: 400/400 HP | 37/40 EN | 10 DMG | 14 MIT | 1 ACC | 2 EVA | 4 BH
[H: 0] @tricolor_mina: 280/280 HP | 26/28 EN | 3 DMG | 23 MIT | 1 EVA | 1 KEEN | BLD 12 | BH 2
[H: 3] Katagawa: 280/280 HP | 15/28 EN | 7 DMG | 8 MIT | 3 EVA | 9-10 PLZ | 2 BH | 5 VMP(D)

Snow Beast: 186/250 HP | 160 DMG [Stunned: 0/1]

Hokori could tell the boy was getting tired, which was reasonable. They had been out here facing boars for quite some time now. It would've been better if he had gotten himself some better gear to face them with, but it was what it was. There was no telling what he would be capable of with the right gear. She had half a mind to lend him her two handed sword, but he probably didn't have the skills to wield it better than his current weapon. "Good job! one more to go for this group." Though she didn't know what his quest progress was, she could tell by his energy that it probably wasn't that good. One of the tusks at the most more than likely. They'd probably have to come back and try this again at a later time. Then after that they could move on to the next quest. There was four in total, and she wanted to actually take someone through all of them for once. More often than not, people seemed to vanish after doing the first couple. Heck, sometimes they seemed to vanish into the plains on the second one. It was honestly quite the strange occurrence.

@pureblade

Hokori watched as Pur slowly made his way towards the boar, finally on the offensive. She didn't comment this time around, instead deciding to let him try to figure his way out. He was heeding her advice and that was good, but she couldn't let him become reliable upon it. It wasn't like she was always going to be there. Well, she might be there for a little while, but she couldn't guarantee always being around and wanted to make sure that she wasn't carrying him everywhere. Dependency led to failure in the end. That was what her father had taught her. Following that, she had been made to be self-sufficient as early as possible. They didn't force her out, but they made sure that she could handle herself rather than give her everything. Well, give her what little they had themselves. Living self-sufficiently meant you could consistently live, but meant you were always living towards the poverty line. No lavish luxuries when you did everything for yourself.

@pureblade

Hokori felt so strange. It was like she had just been in this game for a few moments, but looking back on it it was nearly a lifteim ago that she had entered this. It was so strange to think that she had already come this far and yet still had so far to go. "At least for me, my life didn't really change between the inside and the outside. At least for the first couple months. I pursued my knowledge and got pretty darn good at applying it. I focused on studying the tools they used in this game to further my own knowledge in my field. I may be missing out on a proper education, though I have been getting taught so much more in the meantime. It just feels like I'm spending a couple years studying abroad rather than pursuing a graduate degree immediately. Probably a break for the better on my end." She did worry about how much time she had lost with family and friends, but she felt that it would be for her own betterment at the end of the day.

@Baldur